


Colour Theory

by Salmaka



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Brief mention of war and blood, Character Study, Gen, Implied Dandolo | Merchant Prince/Melvin Mancer - Freeform, Inspired By Tumblr, Usage of Headcanon(s), implied future relationship, questionmark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-04 05:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmaka/pseuds/Salmaka
Summary: Colours were always playing an important role in Melvin's life





	Colour Theory

**Author's Note:**

> Fic was inspired by [this](https://thependragonwritersguild.tumblr.com/post/186770245149/prompt-9782) prompt

Back in Ophir, Melvin’s drawings were dominated by shades of black, white or their combination. And that was logical because the heart of his motherland had only few colours to offer. It was as if Mother had sucked them all from her city and the lives of her children alike.

And the Source, in particular, was nothing but shades of despair and oppression.

Of course, there were some ‘colourful’ exceptions. Like the red of Abundancean banners hanging from the hands of the statues, or of lines on buildings, accompanied by a few stripes of orange and yellow. The steely blue of pointless metal ornaments. The shiny gold of logos high above citizens’ heads. The rainbow-y lights coming over the wall from the Exchange no matter of the hour. The colourful and at the same time dull propaganda posters and murals on the walls…

The Chapel, though beautiful, was simply steely grey with few blue details which only underlined the shadows. However, all gone was the sterile light of the world outside — here the light was nice and warm. As welcoming as seeing the shock of Sean’s white hair — the safe harbour for Melvin. The Chapel was the only other place outside the Order’s walls where he could sit down and stop pretending. Here he could be human even if it was for just a moment.

All the linearity and simplicity the Source was full of was exciting at first. It was an excellent way to practice shadowing but as years passed, they became bars of Melvin’s prison. With every new line he drew he was as if locking himself up. Knowing there was nothing more for him or his family, there was no escape.

Every time Melvin got back from the front, red and blue got very prominent in his drawings. That was if he even took a pencil into his shaky hands. He was afraid of what he would draw with his mind full of horrors.

All he could think of was the red of a firing and overheating nailgun, of martian sand and stone under soldiers’ feet. The dark red of blood and organs and…

Of the blue representing the primal colour of his far cousins and the colour of technomancy. The blinding blue of an overloading technomancer…

Every time Mancer closed his eyes, he could see it all as bright as day.

Only when Sean coaxed him to go down to the Slums and after Melvin met Sean’s unlikely friend, did he start to use more of the colours the pallete had to offer.

The under-city was so full of life, sounds and smells… Melvin couldn’t get enough of it and Alex was more than eager to share it all with him. To show him that there was more to life than depressing grey. Days and nights, Melvin was trying to capture all of it with his pen and a new set of pastels the Rogue gifted him.

All the flickering neon lights reflecting from the stone floor polished by thousands of feet. Outfits -- somehow more varied than in the Upper city. The many weird angles of buildings encroaching upon one another. Borders meant nothing here; people were all surviving together. Clinching to one’s neighbour to seek at least some stability in the under-city. They had to stay together, be strong, to survive the crushing weight of the city above them.

As a thanks, Melvin drew a pink elephant and he'd never forget the look on Rogue’s face when he gifted it to him. Alex wouldn’t stop looking at it the whole night.

But then the suffocating grey hit again — another departure for the front. Both his and Sean’s. And when back in Ophir, there simply wasn’t enough time or energy to visit Pinky. Or to do anything else really… Time passed agonizingly slow.

Bad news started to fill the streets: new laws and restrictions mostly followed by terrorist attacks followed by another set of laws — the never ending cycle. The shadows were looming over the whole city and everyone living in it.

Now, thanks to something that could only be described as a miracle, Melvin was in a new city and colours were coming back to his life. And again he couldn’t get enough of it.

He was wondering if there even was a way to capture the endless beauty of Noctis by his hands. The hands which were only used to shades of grey and to destroying everything they touched.

Looking at the city, Melvin noticed that no colour was dominant — or at least not in the way he was used to from the Source. Sometimes colours simply faded and merged into each other in front of his eyes, and created a new one without a need for actual physical blending. Melvin was confused by it at first, but he simply took it as a part of the legendary city itself, as something an outsider cannot simply understand. Noctis felt like a living organism. It somehow reminded Melvin of the Slums but not quite, because people here weren’t surviving — they were living. Truly living. The city breathed, laughed, cried with its people. Whatever one felt, influenced the other. This took Melvin a very long time to fully understand and to become a part of it himself. 

Every place in Noctis was his favourite but the Palace took a special spot in his heart. All the patterns on the pillows and the walls, curves and carving in the stone, the illuminated and the dark places and corners, all the individuals to draw. The number of details there were in the Palace made Melvin’s head spin and he hadn’t seen even a half of it!

Sometimes, Melvin simply sat down and rather let himself be absorbed by the atmosphere than to try to capture it. He observed the place, its people and the mood. Or at least he was trying to; this was another thing that took Melvin some time to really understand and feel.

By the third day of sitting and observing was Mancer able to draw this place from memory and he was capturing not only what he saw but also started creating something new, something coming from himself. His muse found him again — or maybe he found himself a new one.

It was during one of those tranquil moments when Melvin noticed Dandolo talking with someone not far from where he was. Dandolo wore his blue tunic but instead of his normal pants, he had a skirt. The day was quite hot and Melvin would kill for something lighter himself. The Prince's gestures were wide, as usual, but not ‘loud’. They were meant not to capture one’s attention but to simply underline what the Prince was talking about. Melvin found that fascinating, it was the exact opposite of any Abundancean orator.

The natural light coming from the open ceiling was just right to highlight the colour of Dandolo’s hair, his sun-kissed skin, his eyes…

Oh, Shadow — Melvin hadn’t seen eyes _ that _ green for a long time, if ever.

Were they always like this?

Melvin had talked with Dandolo countless of times, being something like an ambassador of the Order, but he had never noticed what a beautiful shade of green the Prince’s eyes were. Now Melvin felt he could drown in them if Dandolo met his gaze. He both feared and yearned for it to happen.

The next time Melvin decided to draw something, his hand reached for the green pastel on its own. In fact, green became pretty dominant in all his drawings and Melvin didn’t realise until someone pointed it out. Mancer was experimenting with that colour: tried different pressure, angles…

Who could think that green had so many tints, shades and hues?

**Author's Note:**

> Kisses for my Writing Comrades for being awesome! :* :*


End file.
